Ties That Bind
by Thuvia
Summary: Sarah acquired some strange ties to the Labyrinth during her journey, and someone wants to use them to get to the Labyrinth.
1. Midsummer Moon

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anyone or anything else from the movie

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anyone or anything else from the movie.

"Mommy! Mommy! The fairies are coming out!" I cried. "Look, you can see. See the lights bouncing that way!"

"Yes, Koren. It's a full moon and Midsummer tonight." 

"And that means that there's more magic out tonight than there ever is!" my sister exclaimed. "Well, good magic, anyway."

"Yes, Elien, and because of it, there's a celebration at the Palace of the Goblin King. I think you two should go. Follow the fairies; they'll show you the way to the castle. I'll come and bring you home later."

"Aren't you coming?" Elien asked.

She shook her head. "I have things to do. Run along."

"Come on, Elien!" I yelled, grabbing my sister's hand. "We can run!"

We dashed out of the cottage into the forest, watching the fairies go by. I followed them at a run, my twin Elien a step behind me. The fairies, usually dangerous and biting, flew around us. It was just past sunset and the sky above our head was red and orange and purple.

Then goblins joined us. Normally I would have hid from them; now they ran with us, deeper into the Labyrinth. Fireys ran around, tossing their hands and heads about, but they didn't try to touch us.

Elien slowed behind me, panting. She couldn't keep up; we were only six, after all. A creature swept us up. Elien sat on its shoulders, clinging to its long brown fur. I climbed up its back, demanding noisily a chance to ride on the shoulders as well.

We ran into the City. More goblins joined us there. The creature carried us up to the castle.

King Jareth stood before the doorway, holding a crystal in his hand. We stopped before the castle, waiting for all the Labyrinth to arrive. I slid down the creature's arm, to the ground. "Thank you for carrying me," I said. "My name is Koren."

"Me Mora," the creature said. 

"'Allo," said a voice near the ground. I looked down. Several blue worms stared up at me, blinking their big, long-lashed eyes. 

"Hello!" I said.

"I say," the largest worm remarked, "could you possibly pick us up so we can see?"

"Sure!" I said, stooping and scooping them up. "Except that I'm just a little girl, so I don't know how well you can see."

"Better than from the ground," the worm assured me, as I deposited them on my shoulders.

The crowd suddenly hushed. Mora picked me up again so that I could see. Fairies settled down, sitting on me. I could see that they had already sat on Elien. 

King Jareth held up a crystal and tossed it into the crowd. It expanded below our feet, turning into a large, round disk that rose into the air, above the castle, so that we could all see the sky. I turned and looked east.

The moon was rising. It was orange. The stars above me were winking into view.

The grownups gathered in the center of the disk and started dancing. I watched them, entranced. Someday, I promised, I would dance like that.

The Fae and mortal adults bowed out, laughing and tired, and the goblins moved to the center to dance. The fairies rose from our shoulders, performing their own dance in the air above them. I clapped, watching.

Then it was time for my favorite part, the children's dance. I put the worms on Mora's shoulder and she put me down, and I raced into the center of the disk, Elien behind me. Around us other children, fae and mortal and goblin, dwarf and fairy, dryad and faun and stone spirit, were running into the center. We danced our own dances, wild and exuberant, paying no attention to the rules and steps that the grownups had to follow.

I danced for an hour before we were done. I was exhausted. A big, furry creature picked me up and carried me to the rim of the pavilion. I saw Mora again. "Ludo!" she said, bending and hugging the creature carrying me. She sat, holding Ludo in her lap. I sat in Ludo's lap. I yawned and then fell asleep, utterly happy.


	2. Where is My Mother?

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anyone or anything else from the movie

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anyone or anything else from the movie.

"Wake up," a Fae woman whispered in my ear. "Didn't you say your mother would fetch you?"

I yawned and stretched, turning to the woman who had led me off the dance floor. "Yes, she said she would."

The woman looked annoyed. "I don't see her. She should have been here by now; we're on the ground. It's sunrise."

I sat up and looked around. The sun was rising, and nearly everyone was gone. Mora was sitting across the field from me, my sister Koren asleep on her lap. Where was my mother?

King Jareth appeared before me. "What is going on here?" he asked.

"My mommy's not here and she said she would be," I explained. 

"Who is your mother?"

I frowned. My mother was Mommy, but so was everyone's mother. What was her name? "Larina."

The King held up a crystal and peered into it. "Oh," he said, startled.

"What?"

He bent down, staring at me. "Your mother istrapped on Earth. Do you know what Earth is?"

"The mortal world?"

"That's right. I'll try to get her back, but it might take a long time. Years, even."

I stared up at him. 

"You're going to have to take care of yourself and your sister for a while now," he said softly. Then he stood, taking my hand. He led me to Mora and Koren. "Mora, these children's mother is gone. They need somewhere to live for a while. You will take care of them until I tell you otherwise." He walked away.

Mora carried me, my still-sleeping sister, and a little creature like her into the Labyrinth.


	3. The Child

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anyone or anything else from the movie

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anyone or anything else from the movie.

"Koren?" said Jareth. "We have a problem."

I turned to look at him. I was nineteen now, and he often asked for my help on state matters. That wasn't too surprising, since he didn't have anyone else to ask: very few Fae actually chose to live within the Labyrinth.

My eyes widened. He held a baby in his arms.

"What's going on?"

"This child is tied to something in the Labyrinth somehow. I don't know how, but I need him under my control."

"How did he get here?"

"His sister Sarah said the Words."

"Oh. Is she traversing the Labyrinth now?"

"Yes. I need her to give up, and soon."

I nodded. "Where is she?"

  
"Just outside. I need to study the baby, and I need someone to supervise discouraging her. Can you go out into the Labyrinth and do it? Subtly, of course; don't let her know you're there."

I nodded and turned invisible, then teleported into the Labyrinth.

The mortal woman was there, carefully writing on the floor with a lipstick. I moved below the flagstones. "Goblins!" I commanded.

The little creatures which lived below the ground gathered around me. "You know which rocks have been written on," I stated. Of course they did-they were rock goblins, after all. "Those stones need to be changed. You can turn them any way you want, I don't care, as long as the person who drew on them can't use the arrows she drew."

The little creatures scattered. I watched two of them turn a stone over, then moved above the flagstones. 

Sarah was walking through the corridors, going backwards and forwards. I followed her silently, moving walls when it seemed like a good idea. I bent her view, making the castle-her destination-seem to move.

After a few hours, she stepped into a dead end I hadn't opened in time. She turned around-and discovered that her marks had been changed. "It's not fair!" she shouted. 

I had to move fast. I concentrated hard, teleporting four old friends to help me. Just tell her what I tell you to, I commanded them mentally. Sarah, being mortal, couldn't hear me. 

Tell her that one of the doors leads to the castle, and the other leads to certain death.

One of my guards was confused. Do they? he asked, as his neighbor delivered my message to Sarah. 

Just tell her that they do, then make her talk to Bry and Rhys, I directed. I grinned. Bry and Rhys always lied, except about each other.

I listened to Sarah getting finished with my other two friends. "Oh. Then I'll ask them," I heard her say.

Tell her she can only ask one of you I commanded Bry.

But the rules say that-

Only the one she asks first will answer. But she /can/ ask you both.

And you, Rhys, I thought, tell her it's in the rules, and that one of you always tells the truth and one always lies. Then argue about whether Bry lies.

Right.

There was a pause. She wants to know if Rhys would say that this door leads to the castle.

Tell her yes.

It doesn't.

Sure it does, just by a very roundabout route. Same as the other one. And she's mortal; it's certain she'll die someday, regardless of which door she goes through.

Right. There was a pause, then Sarah stepped through the second door and fell into the Oubliette.

"Thank you, Koren, I'll take it from here," said Jareth's voice. 


	4. The Dance

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anyone or anything else from the movie

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anyone or anything else from the movie.

"Elien, we're in trouble," Jareth said.

"Has she made it that far?" I asked.

"Sarah has dreamed up more of the Labyrinth than any challenger before her. She's now more dangerous than Toby. I need to stop her somehow."

"What are you going to do?"

"Give her a ball. We're going to dance away as much of the night as I can manage. I need other dancers, including you and Koren."

I gasped. A dance. I loved to dance. "Do tell."

"It's to be a masked ball. Appear several years older than her. Wear masks. Most of the dancers will be illusions. Try to be near her as much as possible. Don't let her go bumping into people that aren't there."

"Got it," I said, turning and walking to my room, where I rapidly dressed and shapeshifted to appear adult.

Soon the summons came. Jareth threw a crystal at me, transporting me to his ballroom. I danced, masked, caught up in the joy of it. I watched Jareth dancing with the mortal woman, Sarah.

The clock struck twelve. Something was wrong. Sarah should have been enthralled by Jareth until midnight; instead, she broke free of him and ran to the ballrom wall. She picked up a chair and smashed it.

We fell out of the chamber. I don't know where everyone landed. I came down in a part of the Labyrinth I'd never seen-not too surprising, given that Sarah had made huge amounts of new Labyrinth while she'd been here. I shook my head, changed my clothes, and began to walk back to the castle.

I arrived there after Sarah, to find Jareth and Koren sitting in the throne room. "I lost," Jareth said, looking up at me. "She's back Aboveground."

"I could feel her connection to the Labyrinth," I said. "I could feel Toby's, too. What is it going to do to us?"

"Nothing, as long as Sarah wants it that way," said Jareth. "I've given her the power to call Hoggle and the others to Earth if she wants to, because I want them to remain her friends. She won't accidentally destroy the Labyrinth because she's mad at me if she's afraid for their welfare."

"Could she do that?"

"She could certainly destroy the parts she made, and most of the parts she changed. I don't know what that would do to the rest of it, and I don't want to find out." Jareth paused. "If someone with power got their hands on those two"

I shuddered. "Something is going to go after them," I said.

Jareth nodded. "And I can't protect them."


	5. Waking Nightmare

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anyone or anything else from the movie

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anyone or anything else from the movie.

"Wait, I'm confused," I said. "I never was as good at magical theory as you were, Elien. How is Sarah connected to the Labyrinth?"

She turned to me. "You must have noticed that stone maze she was in; you were working in it. Did it seem at allunfamiliar to you?"

  
I nodded. "I'd never been there beforewhich is odd, because I've been exploring the Labyrinth for years. But it felt like I knew where everything was." 

"You hadn't been there before because before today, it didn't exist. When a mortal goes through the Labyrinth, if their imagination is strong enough, they create whole new sections of it. Sometimes they create new creatures too, and sometimes they just pull in old ones. Sarah made the shifting maze and the hedge maze, and pulled people and things into it. She created the Escher room, a bunch of the goblins, and the Fireys."

"And the part Sarah created is now tied to her. If she's ever angry at us, she could tear it up again, which would cause terrible problems in the rest of the Labyrinth, not to mention to anyone in those sections-which are pretty big now, let me tell you," Jareth added.

"Forget angry-the Labyrinth does have enemies. They could grab Sarah and use her to get us," said Elien bleakly. "And I'm sure someone will."

"Someone's going to go after Sarah? And Toby? And then attack us?" I asked.

Jareth nodded. "Her tie is too clear for our enemies to overlook. Eventually-and probably much sooner-someone will see it and jump her, someone not constrained by the Labyrinth's rules for giving mortals a chance."

"Who?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I wish I knew."

I swallowed, scared. The idea of an enemy reaching out and destroying my world, without being able to do anything about it, shook me. I hated not knowing things. I'd always hated not knowing things. "I wish I knew who was going to go after her."

There was a blip in my mind, and suddenly a picture unfolded, obscuring my sight of the real world. I saw a man lying beside me, and a baby in a crib across the room.

I recognized the baby. It was Toby.

In the-vision? hallucination?-I stood and walked across the room. I heard a woman whispering, "It's tireth has beensomehow. Tostepbrat of mine hasearthquake."

The picture was jumping around in my head. One second "I" was standing by the window, the next I was in bed, the next I was sitting up again.

I'd done telepathy before. Telepathic pictures did not jump around like that. Voices didn't fade in and out. Once a true connection was established, the message was always crystal clear, and it never .

A false telepathic send-deliberately inducing hallucinations in someone else's mind from afar-did have exactly this kind of fading in and out and sudden jumps. Someone was sending me hallucinations.

"No!" I screamed. "Stop it! Get out of my mind!"

The pictures continued. "Stop!" I screamed, clutching my head and sobbing.

"Koren!" Elien said, kneeling before me and grabbing my arms. "What's wrong?"

"I'm hallucinating," I whispered. "Someone's sending me hallucinations!"

She picked me up, carefully, and carried me to my room and put me to bed, then waited there with me, stroking my back, as I sobbed and moaned, watching the distorted pictures running through my mind. Eventually they faded out, and I fell asleep.


	6. Earthquake

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anyone or anything else from the movie

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anyone or anything else from the movie.

Koren finally fell asleep. I left quietly. Perhaps she would shake off the telepathic hallucinations as she slept. I hoped so, at least. I began to walk down to the throne room.

The stairwell beneath my feet began to shake. I slipped and rolled down a flight of stairs, as pieces of the ceiling began to fall down on me. I gasped, throwing up my arms and my magic, trying to protect myself. I started to teleport-and a rock fell on me. I didn't have time for the concentration it required.

A piece of the wall fell out in front of me, and I started slipping. My fingers dug into the stone of the stair, trying desperately not to fall out. I pulled myself into a space between the wall and the stairs and looked out.

A great earthquake was shaking all of the Labyrinth.

A rock fell on me and I screamed as I felt my ribs crack. I looked down. I was covered with blood.

The shaking finally stopped. Koren came walking down the stairs. "Elien!" she screamed. She knelt and began prying rocks off of me.

I tried to help her. It didn't work very well. I could barely move. "Just hold still, Elien," Koren said, carefully lifting boulders away. I obeyed. She was carefully placing every boulder on the stairs, out of the way, but not letting them fall out of the tower.

When the boulders were finally all gone, Koren held her hands up and prepared to work magic. She drew a square in the air, and it firmed into a stretcher. She carefully set it onto the stairway, positioning it so it was flat, then lifted me onto it. It hurt. A lot. I knew that there was something seriously wrong with me.

She lifted the stretcher carefully. I was glad-I didn't think I could handle the strain of teleportation at that point. Koren carried me to her room, which seemed to be all right. She set me on the bed, carefully. "Elien," she whispered helplessly. She set her hand on my back and tried to push magic through it. It didn't work. While we both had healing power, neither of us had the training to use it. I closed my eyes, tired. I could feel myself still bleeding. It hurt to breathe. It would be easierso much, much easier


	7. Help Me

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anyone or anything else from the movie

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anyone or anything else from the movie.

I could feel Elien slipping away. "No!" I screamed. "Don't die on me! Breathe, please, please breathe" I inhaled and screamed. "SOMEBODY HELP ME!"

KOREN! snapped a voice in my head.

I gasped. "Who are you? Are you the one who was sending me hallucinations earlier?"

They weren't hallucinations. I was possessed by a demon; telepathy was hard. Now I'm not. Put both hands on your sister, on the most unbroken skin you can find.

Shaking, I obeyed. I wasn't sure what this would do, but it was, at least, a chance. I'm going to work through you, the voice continued, but you must trust me. I'll need your power too, and Elien's. I'm a trained healer, but this distance thing is hard. Brace yourself. This will hurt. With that, she started.

I screamed. The whole world was obscured by white light. I couldn't see, nor, after a minute, hear. But I could feel. I felt rocks hitting me, I felt my leg being crushed, I felt my chest being torn open. It did hurt. Then the pain and the light started to fade. I looked down.

Elien blinked up at me, looking exhausted. Her clothes were still ripped and she was still covered with dried blood-but I could see that her chest, her leg, and all of the little cuts she'd acquired were healed. There was scar tissue, certainly, but Elien was alive. 

Tell her to go to sleep, the voice directed. She needs rest.

I obeyed. "Elien, go to sleep. It's safe now."

She closed her eyes. I concentrated. Who are you? I asked.

My name is Twyla. I'm on Earth-I was trapped on Earth years ago. I was possessed by a demon until recently.

She had been possessed by a demon-meaning she wasn't anymore. Where is the demon now? I asked.

It transferred to my son and through him to my stepdaughter.

Toby and Sarah?

Yes.

Where are they?

I don't know.

Come here!

I can't. I told you, I'm trapped on Earth. It will take me a few hours to reverse this spell.

You can reverse the spell? How were you trapped on Earth?

There was a long pause. Years ago, the demon lost its control of me for a few hours. I went to Earth and trapped myself there, making sure there was a way for me-but NOT me possessed by the demon-to get back.

Why trap yourself on Earth? If you'd gone somewhere else, someone might have noticed and freed you of the demon-but on Earth?

Well, I'm mostly a healer. My magic wasn't very good for conquering things, so it wasn't much use to the demon, but I had these two daughters that it was going to transfer to


	8. Sarah

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anything else from the movie

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anything else from the movie.

I rolled over on my back and peeked through my eyelids. Koren was still sitting on my bed, looking startled. "Koren?" I asked sleepily.

She shook herself. "Elien, how do you feel?"

I stretched. "Better," I said. "What's up?" I thought for a second. "Who healed me?"

She closed her eyes. "It's a very long story. Here's the important points: our mom was posessed by a demon, got married on Earth, had a baby who was Toby, the demon transferred from her to Toby and his half sister Sarah, then used Sarah to knock big pieces out of the Labyrinth, and is going to come for us to try to take us too, and then use us for something. We have to get out, to hide."

"What? Where?" 

"The Minotaur's Labyrinth. The Bog of Eternal Stench. The forest we grew up in. It doesn't matter, we just have to avoid the places Sarah created. If we can."

I nodded and tried shakily to stand. Koren took my arm and draped it over her shoulders. "Come on, I'll help you," she said.

We went out of the room, onto the tower's staircase where I'd been hurt. The stairs were broken and twisted, so that it was more like a rocky hill than a staircase. A rocky hill where the stones were still loose, so that a misstep would sent the stone you'd stepped on falling. Koren tested every stone before she put her weight on it, or let me put my weight on it.

We rounded a turn and came to a place where the wall had fallen out. We both stopped and stared, appalled.

I could see the goblin city-or what was left of it. Most of the buildings had fallen down-goblins aren't the best of all possible builders, and the Labyrinth doesn't get many earthquakes. Jareth wouldn't allow it, under normal circumstances.

The streets were disrupted. They looked like ocean waves, with the ground below them thrusting up into the air or dipping into the ground. That is, the streets that weren't choked with rubble. Some goblins were digging others up out of the rubble. Others lay, hurt, in the streets.

"They need our help!" I said. "Koren, we have to get down there. I'm a healer, you're a healer-we can help!"

"No, Elien. We have to save ourselves. We have to hide. If the demon finds us, it could well do worse to this place."

"But-"

Koren started walking down the stairs, pulling me along with her. After a minute, I let go. I managed to walk down the stair by myself, a step behind Koren.

Then Koren slipped. She fell, and rolled down a few steps. I started to hurry down to her, realized what a bad idea that was, and slowly picked my way down the steps. 

She stared up at me. "Elien. I'm okay, but I don't think I can walk. Go down to the throne room, get Jareth, and have him fetch me."

"Koren"

"Just go."

I squeezed her hand, let go, and continued down the stairs, into Jareth's throne room.

We came down into Jareth's throne room. Jareth stood there, and turned to me. "Elien."

"Jareth! Koren fell down on the stairs, and she's hurt. She says she's okay, but she can't really walk."

Jareth blinked, produced a crystal, and threw it into a corner of the room. A pallet materialized, with my sister laying on it.

"Jareth, I know what did this," Koren said. "A demon. A demon that has possessed our mother for a lot of years took control of Sarah and Toby, and apparently it's coming for us, too." 

He blinked. "A demon." He looked around. "That makes sense. Not much else could use Sarah this fast."

"What are you going to do?"

"Are you sure it's going to go after you? Both of you?"

"Pretty sure. At the moment it's inhabiting our half brother and controlling our stepsister. We think it's going to go for us for our power. Mother said that it had been planning on controlling us for a long time."

"Then you'd better split up, to slow it down and buy us some time to figure out how to fight it. One of you should take off, into the Labyrinth, and the other should come with me. I need to get my people to safety."

Koren blinked. "Where is safety'?"

"Magdalene's maze. It's built on entirely different principles than the Labyrinth. I don't think the demon can affect it."

I shivered. "Magdalene's maze. That place doesn't make any sense to me."

"It's never killed anyone, it's stable as anything can be, and if I'm careful, nobody will get lost. One of you had better go away now."

I nodded, turned, and walked towards the door.

"Elien," he said.

I turned back to him.

"Take care of yourself." I nodded and walked out, into the city.

The temptation to stop and help was overwhelming. All around me, goblins lay injured in the wreckage. I gritted my teeth and kept going.

Then I came upon Ludo. He sat on the ground, a gash in his chest. He seemed to be trying to roar-but it clearly pained him. I stopped. Goblins were goblins-but this was Ludo. I'd grown up in his house. I couldn't abandon him. I stepped towards him and placed my hands on his side, near the gash. "Hold still," I directed. I concentrated. I wasn't a trained healer-but Koren and I both had healing powers, and we'd figured out how to use them as children. I concentrated.

Ludo bellowed in pain, but he knew better than to fight; he'd seen me heal people before. I opened my eyes and staggered. Ludo was healed-badly. He had a scar on his side, instead of fur; but he wasn't bleeding, and he wasn't hurting.

Ludo stood up and roared. The rocks started moving, rolling off of the half-buried goblins. I turned and started walking out of the city again. I'd helped Ludo; he would be more use here than me. 

After a few minutes of walking, I arrived at a gate out of the City. It was a small northern gate, not the one Sarah had gone through; I hoped that it would lead to a place she hadn't created.

I was in luck-the gate led to a forest, thick with oaks. I smiled. It had taken much less damage in the earthquake than the castle. I walked through it, relaxing. Fae had always had strong ties to oak trees; among them, I felt safe. I dropped, lying on the thick moss, and yawned. I was very tired

Then I heard a scream. I jerked up, and ran through the forest, towards it. The forest changed around me, becoming wilder. Swampier.

Then a dozen orange things jumped out at me. I screamed and threw my hands above my head. They knocked me over.

I looked at the creatures more closely. They were Fireys. Which Sarah had created.

Which meant that I was probably in a part of the Labyrinth she had created.

I turned my head. A woman with brown hair, carrying a baby in a sling on her chest, held a little goblin in her arms. The goblin was screaming. She let go of it, and it fled, deep into the forest. 

Sarah stood up and walked towards me. "Elien," she said.

I scrambled to my feet. "Come here," she demanded.

I turned and ran. "Elien!" she shouted, chasing me. "Don't fight me, join me! It's what you were born to do!"

The ground dropped under me, and I fell into a tunnel. I stared both ways frantically, then raced down one.

Faces carved into the rocks began to talk to me. "Beware, beware." "Go back now." "Turn, for this way leads to certain destruction." I ignored them and kept going.

I ran straight into an Oubliette. I slammed the door behind me, then leaned against it, panting. Sarah slammed into the door behind me. "Elien, open this door!" she demanded.

"No!" I yelled.

"Elien, you were born to serve me. I seduced your father all those years ago to get you and your sister, and I'm certainly not giving you or her up now."

I closed my eyes. I was terrible at combat magic, but there had to be something I could do. Fire. It was my only chance. I concentrated, conjuring a fire into the corridor behind me.

"Is that all you can manage, little girl?" Sarah asked. She didn't sound hurt. At all. I didn't answer. I tried to remember something, anything, of the magic I knew. Jareth would have been able to deal with her-but Jareth had several centuries more practice using magic than me and was tied directly to the Labyrinth; he could draw on its power at need. Jareth? I called silently. Koren? 

Calling for help, child? the demon asked pitilessly. I heard a creak, and a door on the other side of the Oubliette opened. Sarah stepped through. I tried to open the door behind me, and got stuck. I looked at it. Stone had lapped over its edges. I turned back.

Sarah jumped on me, knocking me to the floor. We rolled over and over it, her clinging to me tenaciously, me kicking and punching to get her off. I slammed into a few walls.

Then I felt myself going limp. I screamed mentally at my muscles to move, but I couldn't. My body was no longer under my control.

I stood up. Magdalene's maze? I heard the demon wonder. Then I will go there to fetch Koren.

Leave my sister alone! I screamed.

I don't think so, the demon replied.

I turned and walked out of the Oubliette, Sarah close behind me.


	9. Mother's Help

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anything else from the movie

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anything else from the movie.

Jareth threw a crystal at me, and I rose and floated through a door into Magdalene's maze.

Magdalene's maze is a very weird place. It is made entirely of globes of light, and beams of light connecting the globes, suspended in space. The light has its own gravity, so you can walk on it. Jareth claims that a collection of beams and globes is called a graph. The light beams keep stretching and twisting, as if they don't care how long they were. It was dreamed up by a young woman who loved mathematics. I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised.

Just inside the door is a complicated mass of beams and globes. It's big, at least when it needs to be. I climbed along it to the far edge, knowing that the goblins would also need to be sitting on it.

The door reopened, and I watched Jareth send a group of goblins through. Two of them were carrying a third. They made their way across the structure to me.

One of the goblins looked at me and said, "Jareth says you may not be a trained healer but you're the only one we've got, so you'll have to do. Can you try to heal her?" The goblins carrying another goblin deposited her on the structure. Light beams moved to support her.

I swallowed. Mother, hurry! We need your healing power! I placed my hand on the goblin and concentrated. It was hard. I gritted my teeth and tried. My side suddenly hurt with the goblin's pain as well as my own. I kept working. One of the first things I had learned was how very, very bad it was to stop a healing in the middle. Mora still had a limp from that time.

The pain receded and I opened my eyes. The goblin woman lay at my feet, part-healed-that is, I'd formed a thin layer of scar tissue to stop the bleeding, but not repaired any of her muscles. "I shouldn't do any more," I told the goblin leader. "I'm going to have to do this an awful lot, and doing more than stopping the bleeding is going to drain me too much." I yawned. I was exhausted.

More goblins carried their wounded to me. I tried to help them all-but soon I felt my power waning. I opened my eyes, staring down at an injured child I couldn't help. "I can't," I whispered. "I haven't the power."

Jareth appeared behind me, and placed his hand on my shoulder. I felt magical power flow into me. "Jareth, what are you doing?" I asked. "With the Labyrinth in ruins you don't have any power to spare."

"I'll have to spare this," he said. "My people need it."

I nodded and kept working.

It was a grueling few hours. Jareth was kept busy moving goblins into the Maze, and I was kept busy healing them. Jareth fed me more power as necessary. Neither of us mentioned how weak we were becoming. But I knew that we were probably no match for Sarah.

Then Sarah walked into the maze. 

She was carrying Toby and holding Elien's hand. "The demon's possessed Elien," Jareth said, somehow retaining his composure. I couldn't. I was terrified. "Can it control both of them at once?" I asked.

"If they're standing close enough together it can. If they're related by blood, it can. That's why most demonic transfers are between relatives."

Sarah and Elien came towards us. I stood up and placed my hand on Jareth's shoulder. "Take my power," I said. "Maybe you can use it to stop them."

He conjured a crystal and threw it at them. Sarah caught it and tossed it into the air. It puffed out in a cloud of sparks. She pointed at us, and a wind slammed into us, blowing us off of the graph.

We fell down, into a triangular pyramid of light beams. It expanded, becoming large enough to contain us both. I stood on one beam, gripping Jareth's hand. Sarah and Elien stood above us, and pointed down. I heard a word spoken and shivered. It was a spell of imprisonment.

The air between the light beams began to sparkle. It firmed into shimmering iridescence. I touched it. It was rock solid. Jareth and I were now trapped in a crystal pyramid.

Sarah and Elien turned and walked out of the Maze. I turned to Jareth. "Whereare they going?"

He swallowed, unhappily. "It can't beconvenient for the demon to have its power spread between two or three bodies. I think it's going to transfer Sarah's power into Elien, or the other way around, and then come back for you."

"What happens to Sarah when the demon abandons her?"

"Usually a demon's victims simply lie down and die when they're left."

I stared at him for a moment. "No. No! No, don't let that happen to either of them!"

"Do you suppose I've got any choice? I can't get out of this pyramid either. I can't help them."

"Try something. You're the Goblin King, you've got the power, and you're giving up?!"

He whirled and stared at me. "Do you think, you stupid little brat, that it gives me any pleasure to wait in helplessness as my beloved or my foster daughter is even now having her living essence ripped out by a demon? It hurts me more than you know. I want to save them, I would do anything to save them, AND I CAN'T! I haven't been this helpless in centuries, and I hate it!"

I blinked. "Your what?"

He was instantly on his guard again. "My foster daughter, and my protégé."

"No, not that. Not Elien. Sarah is your what?"

He drew himself back. "Nothing. A slip of the tongue, that's all."

"I heard you. You said-"

"Koren, you will be silent on this matter, and you will be silent now." I could hear the menace in his voice. So I stopped talking. There was a pause.

"The thing I don't understand," he said eventually, "is why we're here, rather than in a part of the Labyrinth Sarah created."

I looked around. The Maze felt new. "Can the demon read her mind?"

"To a very limited extent."

"Well, then, maybe it thinks that she did create this. It certainly feels new enough."

Jareth nodded. "If that's the case, then we might have a chance."

"Not much of one. It's not our turf either. Maybe" I trailed off. We were both helpless. There were no maybes. Were there?

Koren, I've killed the spell keeping me on Earth, said Twyla abruptly.

Good! "Mother's free to come back to the Labyrinth," I told Jareth. "Maybe if she comes here, she can break this down."

He nodded. "Have her try it."

I looked up. A woman walked out of the doorway to the castle and began walking towards us. She ran down the light-beam graph and climbed over to our pyramid.

Twyla didn't look like I remembered my mother Larina. She seemed much younger and much frailer. She had paled, too-her skin was very, very white, and her hair had turned silver. Only her vivid green eyes retained their color. She rested one long, delicate hand on the crystal barrier and concentrated. Then she looked up. "I don't understand how this was done," she said. "It's a standard barrier spell, but the nature of this place has changed it somehow. None of the usual shortcuts to destroy it will work, and I don't have enough power to brute-force through it."

"Damn," said Jareth.

"Who knows anything about this place?" she asked.

"It was created by a girl named Magdalene a year ago. She might understand it," I answered.

"Where is this Magdalene?" she asked. 

"On Earth," I replied. "I don't know where, exactly."

"She was in California a year ago," Jareth added. 

Twyla nodded and walked out. I sat down and wrapped my arms around my knees, waiting for her to return. 

In half an hour, she returned, with three young humans behind her. "Three of them?" Jareth asked.

"They wanted to go with their sister," Twyla explained.

One of the girls stepped forwards. She seemed to be standing on another light graph, which glided where she wanted. She looked at the pyramid. "Faces, that's what they have to be," she muttered, "and only planar graphs have faces." She looked at Jareth. "I can try something, your majesty," she said. "I think it will work."

"Do it, Magdalene," he said. "I haven't time to waste."

She nodded and reached for a glowing globe. It fit in her hand-although I was certain it had been big enough to stand on a moment before. She pulled a beam of light out of it, and directed the beam into one of the glowing globes at a corner of the pyramid I was trapped in. There was a sudden flicker, and the iridescent wall on the bottom of the pyramid swelled out like a soap bubble and touched the entire length of the new light beam.

Magdalene smiled. "Perfect. That's exactly what it should do." She grabbed her globe and rapidly drew light beams to the other corners of the bottom. The wall swelled out to touch them all. I was now standing inside a triangular double pyramid.

"Here's the hard part," she said. She touched her globe again and pulled a fourth light ray out of it. The thing she stood on floated upwards, carrying her to the top of the pyramid. She touched the light beam to the globe at the pyramid's top.

There was a flicker of light, and the walls sparkled out of existence. I stepped out, taking my mother's hand, and climbed to the large graph near the door. Twyla glared at the four children. "You stay here," she commanded. "We have planning to do."

Jareth looked at Twyla. "Do you have any ideas?" he asked. "Sarah's more powerful than I am; I'm tired."

"Can't you do something, your majesty?" she asked. "You've more magic than most members of the Fae court."

"One, Sarah is tapping most of it, and two, I used most of the rest making sure my subjects survived her earthquake. We need a way that doesn't use my magic."

Twyla frowned. "There is one other optionbut it's very dangerous."

"We'll have to do it," he said. "We have no other choice. What is it?" 


	10. Regrowth

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anything else from the movie

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anything else from the movie.

I stood on a pillar of rock inside a pentagram. Sarah stood on the pillar opposite me, with Toby between us. We were dancing and chanting, performing a ritual. I could feel part of the spell we were weaving, but I couldn't tell what it was; it was too complex.

Something started to happen within me. It was my healing magic-it seemed to be-growing? 

Then, suddenly, my power within me exploded. I was knocked back onto my back, shocked. I sat up.

Something had broken the demon's control over me. I stood and looked up.

A boy, seated on a horse, was looking at me. He reached over and took my arm. "Elien, come on," he said. "We have to get back to Jareth and Koren now."

"Wh-what happened?" I asked shakily, letting him pull me onto his horse.

The horse began gliding to the ground. "Your mother broke the demon's control of you somehow."

"How?" I asked.

"You should ask her," he replied.

The horse landed on the ground, and the boy helped me down. Koren came running up and threw her arms around me. "Elien!" she said. "You're back!"

"Koren? What's going on?"

"Mother put her power and my power and a chunk of Jareth's power into you, and that broke the demon's magical control of you. We have to keep you, Sarah, and Toby separate for six months now to kill it. You have to put a holding spell on the Labyrinth now."

I blinked. "Me?"

"I told you. We put our power into you. It's not an easy thing to do. Mother is with Jareth and Sarah. They're going to use their power to make the Labyrinth cooperate with you." She handed me a bag of seeds. "The main thing we're going to do is to make these grow, all over the Labyrinth. They'll hold some of the rock fissures and things together."

"I don't know how to make plants grow!"

Koren pointed. "Do you see that pentagram?" she asked.

I turned. There was indeed a star marked on the ground near me, picked out in light. It had runes drawn into it. "You just step inside," she said, "and loose your power. The spell written into the pentagram will do the rest."

The ground lurched below me. "Aftershocks," Koren said flatly. "The demon was preventing them, because it wanted to rule the Labyrinth, not destroy it. But now, well, Sarah doesn't know enough to stop them, and Jareth hasn't the power. It's going to have to be these plants."

I nodded. She took the bag of seeds back from me. "People-anyone or anything that can fly-are already scattering seeds across the Labyrinth. Just do the spell. We'll take care of the rest."

I took a breath, stepped into the pentagram, and closed my eyes.

I felt the power draining out of me into the pentagram. I could see the seeds, lying on the floor of the Labyrinth. They cracked open and sent tiny, glowing roots down, into the rock or the dirt below them. I could see them spreading across the floor of the forest, and, much more slowly, across the stones in Sarah's sliding maze and the Goblin City.

The roots spread, forming a thick network over the ground. They started to turn brown and woody. But they didn't harden completely: I could see that, if another aftershock happened, they'd bend with it enough not to break-while making the ground much more stable. 

The roots sent out shoots: tall, gently bending stems that unfurled bright green leaves. Some of the stems remained only a foot or so tall, but a few grewand grewand grew. I could see the tall trunks in my mind's eye, billowing out into full-fledged trees, casting large, full-fledged shadows across the Labyrinth.

The big trees were beautiful, but my attention returned to one little stem on the outskirts of the hedge maze. I could see, just at its tip, a small red bud. I watched it intensely. It split open, emitting blue light. At the core of the blue light, I could see a little round shape with stars on it. Was it a blossom? A fruit? I didn't know. All I knew was that it was beautiful.

There was a sudden wave, and I watched more red buds open across the Labyrinth. Suddenly the entire place was awash with blue light.

I opened my eyes.


	11. Safe at Last

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anything else from the movie

Disclaimer: I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Labyrinth, or anything else from the movie.

I stepped back from the pentagram-actually a graph from out of Magdalene's maze, hopefully with more stability than a chalk design. I watched Elien close her eyes, and started scattering seeds around the pentagram.

They began growing. I stepped back. A root twined around my boot. I picked my foot up, then did a few hops, looking for a place to put my feet. Finally I saw a knot of roots that didn't seem to be moving and stood on them.

Then, like an umbrella opening, a tree grew in front of me. It just shot out of the ground, putting branches out right and left. I stared at it, open-mouthed. Then it burst into blossom. I watched its little red bud coats drift to the ground.

The flowers were glowing blue.

Elien stood up and stumbled. I caught her. "No more magic for you for a while," I said. I looked around. What was the best way to carry her back to the castle?

The pentagram picked itself up from the ground and curved into a cut shape. I placed Elien on the graph, then started walking back to the castle.

Jareth, Twyla and two of the children met us there. "Take her to your tower room, and put her in bed," Jareth said. "Then come back here. We have to make plans."

"I'll take her up," said Magdalene. "Which room is it?"

"The top one in that tower," I said, pointing.

She nodded and left, Elien's graph following her.

Jareth stepped into another room, and returned, leading Sarah by her hand. She was not happy. "I demand that you give me Toby and let me go!" she said.

"Sarah, please," Jareth said.

"I beat you. Give me my brother back. I don't know what you just did to me, but I want to go home, and I want to take Toby with me."

Twyla shapeshifted into an older woman and stepped forwards. "Sarah, please listen," she said.

Sarah looked at her. "Karen! He kidnapped your son-twice-and then made me a prisoner in my own body, and you want me to listen to him?!"

She sighed. "It's a very, very long story. Please sit down."

Sarah glared at her, then sat. "All right," she said. "Start talking."

Twyla sat down opposite her. "For starters, I'm not quite human. I am Fae, like Jareth. I was possessed by a demon when I was eleven," she said. "But I didn't have the kind of power it wanted, so when I was seventeen, it seduced a very powerful magician and got me pregnant. I had two little girls. Then, when they were six, it was a full moon on Midsummer Eve. That combination of events can change the shape of the world's magic. What it did was to give me enough control of my body to go to the mortal realm and trap myself on Earth. Then the demon regained control. After a few years, it married your father and had another baby. Understand, the demon wasn't trapped on Earth; just its vessel, me. I think its plan was to take over Toby in a few years, then come here and try to take over Elien and Koren."

She paused. Jareth picked up the story. "I noticed that Toby was connected to the Labyrinth-more specifically, to two of its residents, Elien and Koren-and realized the danger he presented. So I took my chance to kidnap him. Then you insisted on trying to reclaim him. Sarah, the way the Labyrinth works is that most of the part you went through you created. You made more of the Labyrinth than anyone before you. By the end, you'd made so much that any of my enemies could easily capture you and use you as a weapon against it and me."

"The demon possessing my mother was only the first," I added. "If you go back to Earth, other Fae will trap you, and use you. Besides, the demon isn't dead; it's only spread out between three different bodies: you, Toby, and my sister Elien. We need to starve it to death, and that means keeping the three of you separate."

Sarah looked at me. "Do you have a nice little plan for all of this?"

"I need you here, because you're connected to the Labyrinth," Jareth said. "I need you to help me rebuild it."

"That thing with the trees-"

"Merely a holding action. It won't do as a permanent solution, but it should give us the time we need to fix the Labyrinth. Elien will visit the Summer Court-you may have heard of it; a mortal by the name of William Shakespeare wrote a play about it."

"And I'm taking Toby to the Star court for six months," Twyla added. "It's where I grew up; I can get a little more training with my magic."

"You're free to go home at any time," Jareth said. "It's just that you'll be kidnapped a week after you return. If I train you in your powers, you'll be able to defend yourself, but it will take a while."

"What about my father?" Sarah asked.

"I'll offer to bring him here," Jareth replied. "Or to send him to the Star court, if he and you so desire. I can even invite some of my cousins to visit, if you've a desire for female company."

"I'll be staying here for a while," Magdalene said, coming back in. 

"And I'll visit," Twyla and I said in unison.

Sarah paused-then nodded. "All right," she said. "I'll stay." She yawned.

"Koren, show her to a guest room," Jareth said. "Everyone, go to sleep. We've got a lot of work to do for the next several months, and we'll all need our rest."


End file.
